Place your hands on your ankle
and squeeze tightly -- like
a tourniquet -- until your foot
expands, withers or explodes
from the pounds of pressure
damming your lower body’s
blood flow.

You can neither walk nor crawl --
your hands otherwise occupied --
so you must sit, half-cross-legged,
listless like a Beckett character,
supporting the burden of existence
-- its pain and tedium, its inexorable
cosmic absurdity.

Without budging, you survey
your surroundings -- a stage
unattended, only the foot lights
lit. You see your future waiting
In the wings among the heavy
velvet curtains drooping
with dust.

You sense an escape: You can
tumble toward your goal, bruising
your brow and back, but covering
distance like Quasimodo alighting
on his bells. You will collide with your
path forward: exchange your tourniquet
for a cross.

A troop of goats trot triple-time down a valley road,
a machinery of bells threshing the mountain air.
Little breaks the silence of the rural dukedom where
we reside. What does, gains immediate notice.

It is the happening of the moment passing through
to another place to pasture, the *******
Of the seasons. Though meadows burst with Kelly green,
and no trees have dropped their leaves, it is
autumn’s inaugural, where clouds hug the earth, mountains
curry themselves, goats scurry to new homes.

We, too, have shifted homes for a respite from the mundane.
The new now advertises surprise: This will not
appear elsewhere, will not last long enough to forget
where we came. With time, we follow the goatherd’s
abrupt call and hope to be rewarded with a golden bell.

The wrathful snap of rifle shots ricocheted
off the vast, seeping stone walls.
Cable cars descended to the valley floor
with a high-pitched hum that ripped
the curtain of quiet in two: no silence in Lauterbrunnen.

Bullets knew nothing of where they lodged.
Cable cars intruded on the space of Europe’s
tallest waterfall, whose spidery flow
continued unabated, oblivious to the human
connection below. The falls knew that Paradise
does not exist in any given, worldly place.

The Amazon River basin brutally burns;
glaciers vanish from greenhouse gases; the ocean
self-elevates: sea level a lost fantasy of the past.
Still, harmony hums louder than the knitted ropes
of steel squealing under unrelenting friction.

Silence has no purchase here; it is dead time, unproductive,
waiting to be filled. I fill it with my rambling
thoughts, held captive by the valley’s massive U-shape.
Maybe it is enough just to think and stroll,
the acrid smell of gunpowder in your nose, your
thoughts echoing like ancient hymns within your skull.

Sheep graze the massive green meadows, wholly unaware
of the dilapidated barn I have come upon. Each rotting
plank a page of struggle, then failure, success and more failure.
Oblivious, the sheep have reached Nirvana: endless heaven of food.
I might envy them, except for their muddy, mixed colors of wool.
Paradise does not mean purity for these plump little herbivores.
They baah unknowingly, nature’s mystic vision: bliss of instinct.

We came to the chalet in the lush valley
at the foot of the Eiger. The line of
mountains rose ragged against the sky.

North Face loomed, a fatal *****
begging to be climbed. Death beckons
on its icy rock face soaring into the foggy
clouds, only to vanish. No peaks, no crags, no crevasses.

The ogre offered no relief, no guidance,
no help to attain the top -- the prize of balance,
strength, courage, and willpower.

We came to the valley to absorb the glory
of the Swiss Alps. Wordsworth succumbed
to the sublime here. Now we all romanticize
nature. But the sublime overwhelms;
it is too grand, too large, too dark, too menacing.
Too much for the scrawny human spirit to take in.

Apple trees heavy with fruit line the patio of the chalet.
Receptive, fecund, the Earth brings forth
sustenance to the eye, to the taste buds.
We will not climb Eiger, only devour its power.

Do not succumb to restlessness.
Another journey will not drain the ocean
or clean the sky.
Another mountain will not reveal
the rooftop of the world.

You have your own mountain within.
It pierces the sky, buoys on the sea.
Climb it in solitude, in inwardness.
Rest in exertion.

You will find adventure, joy --
a pilgrimage to heaven's gates.

Climb, and you will find the face of God.

Poetry hunkers down behind
the freshly finished facade
of language; each link to the lexicon
lovingly chiseled into the smooth,
grey stone. Here, precision reigns over all.

Vainly held in place for the length
of a reading, the facade glides
toward a shimmering white dot
on the horizon.The perfect poem, perhaps?
Here, perspective precipitates all.

Like quicksand, a marshy morass
of words ***** at the poet's feet
as he strains to match
the facade's pace, stride for muddy stride.
If he succeeds, pride will power all.

Poetry is breath, inadequately lodged
in the poet's ever-shrinking body.
Reading wrests the silent syntax,
inhales form through its viscera, exhales
metaphor and rhyme. Like becomes like, becomes all.

Critics aside, the poem thrives as a living organism;
it breathes itself far beyond the face of the facade;
it swirls into the stratosphere, flying
straight toward the cosmos' breathless edge.
Here, the getting of wisdom is all.

Before the monsoon descends in feverish
torrents, and The Great Migration begins,
the earth crumbles, crackles and slides
into tawny showers of sand and stone.

Parched prey pray to elude their nemeses,
who scour patches of brown grass,
their noses low and quivering, sniffing
the dust for the faintest fragrance of food.

Baboons heckle crocodiles, whose eggs they've stolen;
female lions pounce on defenseless gazelles. Necks snap.
Life looms for all in the gathering rain clouds.
Yet death will follow, stealthy as a leopard in tall grass.

We ***** the globe like a shaky-legged newborn
giraffe, awkward and vulnerable; dewy-eyed and gulping
the heavy particles of air for the sure scent of sustenance.
Our prey carries no smell, no taste, no movements.

It is sheer spirit shaped from the eternal whirlwinds
of dust that dance around our path. How else shall
we advance? Rain, when it comes, only splatters
in our eyes. We await The Great Migration of Souls.

The lighthouse looms
far off-shore,
its blinding Cyclops eye
circling like a hawk
closing in on weary prey.

The beam blips to
infinity, signaling
wayward ships to slow
their progress through
the choppy sea.

From here, on land,
the house rears up like
a medieval tower, a defense
against dragons menacing
murky depths unknown.

I blink back, trying my best
to reach infinity on my own.
The sea is no substitute. Its
vastness sweeps to a pinnacled
caesura on the Western islands.

Ask Melville whether the spiny
reefs held infinity at bay.
Only for a fleeting moment.
Only until a colossal crash on
the firmament sounded. Paradise lost.

We have no paradise here, save
the spectacular Oregon coast
after sunset, when flat sand lights
up like a neon walkway and
purple streaks paint the sky.

Star fish, in puerile pink, cling
to black boulders. Waves
dive deep. The lighthouse
keeps signaling to no one.
No shred of infinity to be found.

Two Tennessee yahoos
trekked the train tracks
outside of town. They
were always at it --
half habit, half quest
for something new.
Anything.

The older man -- perhaps
the father or brother
of the younger -- had
hit on a plan of his own:
Today he would make
something new happen.

It was an act straight out
of a John Berryman
"Dream Song," even though
he had never heard
of the poet or his
magnum opus.
Little did it matter.

Down the tracks, you
could pick up the shrill horn
of a locomotive, barreling
blindly toward its stop
in town -- a Siren solo
that nobody paid
attention to anymore.

But the old man heard.
He stepped more evenly between
the rails, tightly shut his eyes,
and lifted his arms wide,
as if meeting an old friend,
The train sped on, clacking
clinically over the creosote ties.

The Cyclops eye on the face
of the locomotive shone
like a laser into the autumn twilight.
The older man braced himself,
deafened by the lonesome horn.
Like that, the train whooshed past
on the second rail.

He had picked the wrong track
to die on. He fell to his knees,
the horn of the train still rattling
his brain. Years later, he would
tell this tale -- half habit, half quest.
And we could still smell the scent
of something real coming close.

As I lay dying, I will write poems
on my palm, using a calligrapher's brush.
The ink will dry overnight.
In the morning I shall start again.

Li Po sits beside me, reciting
haiku and clasping his palms.
When I am gone, he will burn the ink and brush
and streak his palms in rich charcoal.

Diaphanous dragons disgorge a deluge of diamonds
into the shadowed crevices of cumulus clouds.

Ruby-red sapphires overpopulate the glistening sky
like carbon-hardened locust: gorgeous messengers of the gods.

The Earth wears a crimson helmet, shielded from
the odious absence of ozone above the North and South poles.

Near Minneapolis, John Berryman's wizened body shatters
on the frozen riverbed below the Washington Avenue Bridge.

Angels weep to see him jump, as he waves a vaudevillian goodbye.
The sapphires blanch, then turn an angry, violent violet. Black holes ahead.

2.
Shakespeare and Mr. Bones **** on mortality's skimpy
skeleton of life. Will this broken body be resurrected?

Does it deserve such distinction? Better yet, does its daring,
drunken destroyer? Four hundred Dream Songs nod yes.

Berryman toddled ticklishly toward the last traces of transcendence.
Love & Fame broadcast how terribly his faith failed to trade

daily delirium tremens for the mysterium tremendum.
The God he prayed to demanded a syntax pure, plain.and perfect.

With jolts of jest, He jimmied paradoxes into koans. Berryman
howls for the sound of one diamond scratching the outline of his body on ice.

3.
He left a legacy broader than liquor, lechery and the love-struck ladies.
Lust seeded his fallow lacunae and lazily broke his wife's heart.

Scholarship scooted him to the squeamish, secluded top
of his Shakespearean class: Signal student turns trusted teacher.

Poetry cloned the Oklahoma clown in him. No successors,
no schools, no savvy peers, save Lowell. his fellow manic-depressive.

He dreamed songs of hilarity, humility, history, dehumanization.
Poetry proved serious business until it learned to laugh at itself.

Sapphires crackle under the weight of the creaking sun. They spin a kaleidoscopic rainbow of colors onto Berryman's obituary. Somehow, he has won:

An irreplaceable jewel of the sky.

I sit weary is the grey, shadowed corner of a monk's cell.
My ragamuffin clothes fit me well.
When I read, the neurons in my brain fire out of control.
They erupt through my conical hair: helmet for space patrol.

My body language belies my intellectual yearnings.
Literature invigorates me: I blast off without earnings.
Ideas, images prove their own reward;
rockets, like Quixote's windmills, form a vast horde

Of cosmic challengers, who meet me face to face.
There is no lonelier place to land than outer space.
All this, of course, comes from a tattered book.
Stop reading, and I can take a long look

At my isolated setting, scattered but safe.
I feel the innocence of Earth's first waif,
who leads me on through page after page.
I am a stranger still to the atomic age.

Poetry wrestles with pain,
holds on tight for art's blessing.

He slumps against the charity's steps.
Torn, oversized Army jacket, a ragged
stocking cap, unwashed face and hands.

His arm extended, he asks for a few dollars.
I resist his obsequiousness and answer
that I carry no cash, which is a lie.

I ponder why I am so afraid to associate
with him; his presence a finger of shame
pointing directly at my recalcitrance.

I drive home in my air-conditioned car,
thinking that I had helped him stay off
the *****. No money was for his own good.

Then my conscience strikes me hard: I am a liar,
a coward. That could have been my brother,
living alone on the cheap streets of Costa Rica.

I quickly turn the car around, race back
to the charity, whose doors remain closed.
I search among the grimy faces. He is gone.

Like becomes like.
Mind fashions experience into spirit.
Experience absorbs mind, shapes its ethereal body.
We know more than we see, taste or feel.
The invisible encircles the straining atoms
of thought, expands until there is space
to fill with my mind as your mind.

O America!
I wander through your golden-red fields.
Vines with still-green grapes snake toward the sun.
Just how fecund you are!

Kick-started beauty lays me low.
Prairies burn with the fire of desire.
Judge me fickle in my allegiance to you.
How little I sense of your natural glory.

Great basalt stones border the ocean.
Vapors of cirrus clouds streak the sky.
Down the beach-packed path I stroll.
Every starfish clings to life at low tide.

Untold riches remain stubbornly unseen.
Great waves of brine bathe the shore.
Xanadu basks underwater.
Atlantis skims the floor of the sea.

Beyond every seagull, a screeching cry fades.
Mountains suddenly beckon inland: a sea of stone.
Setting my sights eastward, I take the plunge.
The slopes and peaks call to me; meadows blossom.

Here, on my way, I exult in your massive splendor.
Who can ever be sated by your majesty?
Nature mesmerizes. I renew my pledge to you.

A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds. -- Percy Bysshe Shelley

The nightingale sings to itself.
But its melodious message flies
far from the bird's tiny tongue.
The song soars beyond her beak;
catches fire in another's nest.
Like listens to like; that is the mystic
chord of the forest, in which singer
and listener unite, trading nuance
and beauty for nuance and beauty.

The nightingale sings to itself.
But only one self grasps her poetry:
the Oversoul of nature; the universal
spirit of art. There is no bird
ululating in isolation; its voice
penetrates the darkness, the thickness
of the forest; it echoes in the twigs
of empty nests. Music always flees to
another's ears, forever reverberating within.

A burning candle could light our way,
as we make a foray between a stream
to our left and black woods to our right.
The night is starless, nameless, harmless
to the nocturnal creatures who guard the way.

Our path lies indistinct, boulders rising up
like barriers: no room ahead, no place to bed.
We peer at the murmuring stream, searching
for a stripe of reflected light. None can be found.
In our pockets, we carry two candles, but we have

no matches, no way to ignite the light that we seek.
Only the Source will provide, not these flickering,
flimsy facsimiles. We seek the light everlasting,
overcoming the night, overcoming our fright.
We will find it only in our Buddha nature, which

radiates like a burning ember through our monkey minds,
which illumines without burning, which needs no fuel
or breath. We will sacrifice our candles to the eternal light.
It crawls out of the woods onto the back of the stream.
Water will carry it; we will follow and never look back.

Love dies like an assassin's victim: caught
completely unaware, the thud of a bullet to the head,
mouth gaping to pronounce its own name. The heart
pumps its leaking reservoir of warm blue blood; the final
breath gurgles in the chest like a baby nursing.

Love dies because we create it in our own image:
two become one become two again. We see ourselves
darkly in its bright, believing face. We wrap our bodies
around it, lusting for ecstasy, with no room left for
the self, for the other. Like St. George and the dragon, we

unsheath a righteous broadsword to make a surgical
separation of locked *****. We dread what we wish for.
We lose our world in passion, empty-handed when
the end inevitably comes. We crave an eternal love,
but are fit merely for a temporal one. Time is love's assassin.

(for Jim Harrison)

poetry is no great solace
alone in my montana cabin
with my faithful hunting dogs
who still don't know me by name
a bottle of 1976 Chateau Mouton Bordeaux
at my left elbow
a meal fit for a gourmand prince set before me
my back blisters in mutant patterns
of unease
there is no sun to burn them away
outside a three-day blow rattles
the hinges
a razor sharp mountain trembles
the wind yearns for my undoing
i have unraveled my medicine bag
beads of healing scatter across the floor
one more manuscript blossoms
is the desiccated orchard
my heart gives way
slumped over my ancient typewriter
i fail to complete the final phrase

Breathing
in her perfume
like a bee nuzzling pink roses.
    
Pure.

The flesh must be subdued,
for it cuckolds the mind
with its gargantuan girth.
To resist it we need
clear reason,
not dark desire; myriad ideas,
not the anarchic imagination.

The weight of finitude
bears down upon us like
a vertical vise. We spread eagle,
arms outstretched, raised in
a straining V to stop
the mechanical pressure
from crushing us.

We will not die from this ploy.
But the weightless will no longer
fight back. The struggle, eternally
repeated, exhausts both flesh
and mind. Ideas still carry
the heft of conviction; yet
they barely move the needle
on the scale.

2.
Movement springs up like
a desert miracle or mirage.
Powerful leg muscles find
nowhere to turn but endless
rock and sand. The sky
offers no help: as empty as
the listless day. Clouds
pull apart like puffs of
moistened cotton;
they cannot mend the
empty self, for they themselves
need mending.

The flesh plays a shell game
with lust and love. Divine the
winner, then slap away any
sleight of hand that might
lead you astray.

3.
I wander the arid byways
of New Mexico; one road
leads straight to the tomb of
D. H. Lawrence. He took
more than his pound
of flesh; his blood
pumps an irrigating flow
into English literature. Flesh
turned to word in his mind.
And like a phoenix, it sprouted
wings and soared breathlessly
into the stratosphere,
far above the dusty canyons
and the dry arroyo of desire.

1.
Angels with gossamer wings
flit heavenward
like bees nuzzling roses
for honeyed perfume.
I watch the angels flutter
higher and higher until
they grow smaller and smaller.
One of them looks back and says,
"You, too, will fly when the sinking
day darkens; when the moon
circles the Earth one last time."

2.
I think how I must free myself
from gravity, from finitude,
from time. The serious day
darkens. I watch it wriggle
into the sea, as infinite
as the sky, it seems, but a richer
shade of blue. The roses
eject the bees, their transparent
perfume wafts over me
like a mystical atomizer; particles
splaying my face, bathing my eyes.

3.
Beyond the sky, in ethereal Elysium,
the Immortals dwell. I gather my life
and cast it at their translucent feet.
They answer only in Greek riddles.
Oedipus wanders among them.
I am as blind as he, sinking into
a sea of shadows. Like a feathered
coral reef, wings waver over
the ocean floor. When the sated
day darkens, they will alight
on my back like petals on a rose.

I thirst fiercely in the desert;
I spy oases in the sky.
I've come to the edge of Mosaic Canyon.
There's nothing to drink
but the surface of stone.
I try licking the tiny pools
of rain water filling cracks
in the boulders.
But they, too, are illusions
packed tight below the sky.

If I could survive on colors, I would
be sated. Reds, browns and tans.
A subtle gray graces the front
of the stone where I sit.
I must try to **** it dry.
Foolishly, I set out hiking
without my water bottle.
Now I hallucinate streams
and gullies in the sand.
I can't go on; I must go on.

Cirrus clouds swirl around
palm trees. Camels linger
at a bubbling pool, settled
on their knees. Cold water
spills from their gnarled mouths.
They have forgotten nothing
to survive. I have forgotten
everything. Soon I hear
my name being called.
It echoes down the canyon.

I stumble backward, ankles
slanting on the stony path.
All along, I keep my eye
on the sky. The vision never
wavers, only intensifies.
The canyon walls box me in.
I cannot catch my breath.
Behind me, my wife calls
and calls me to safety.
In her hand, a cup of cold water.

Mmmmmmoon Lion roars.
The moon swerves in its orbit.
His voice reaches to the heavens,
avoiding omnivorous black holes.

He contemplates his philosophy
of life: poems written with
incorrigible vitality and verve.
He purrs the "m's" in his name.

Auden said that poetry makes
nothing happen. But Lion invokes
humor and thought, the rigor of form.
He holds deep respect for his readers.

They crave to do him justice in the
wake of an endangering diagnosis.
Poetry elevates the body, tunes in
to its hidden rhythms, sings its source.

As in Oz, the lion needs courage
to face the injustices of existence.
He silver-wraps his moments, gone
all too quickly. He instinctively roars

a new way to create poetry, one
that embraces the celestial,
disdains the body's betrayal.
He will win in the end:

His lion spirit soars.

stones rise to the sky
red canyon walls box me in
sated on colors

Mephistopheles moans.
His bargain won; now what
to do? What good is a human
soul as vanquished prey?

Faust exults in his superhuman
strength. He holds an unfair
advantage over all other poets.
No drug testing for magic.

He dances with the devil,
cheek to cheek. He swoons
at the crescendo, falls into
his partner's waiting arms.

There is something maniacal
in his character, like arsenic
in a tall, cold glass of water.
He gets drunk on it, gets high.

Who will judge his newest
achievement? Like for like cannot
be found. He stays isolated
in his cold grey cage. No touching.

Freedom breeds creativity,
the force of all masterworks.
Faust settles as a lap dog
for Mephistopheles.

Soulless, the poet wanders
through Dante's circles
of hell. With whom will he
find his place? No place

for his cheapened soul. No
punishment for his fiery
hubris. He forms artist and
audience as one substance,

and applauds himself.
His victory is self-serving,
but he has no human
self to serve. His triumph rings

hollow. He plays the xylophone
on his ribs. The music turns
toy-like and irritating. He has
gone too far. No way back.

tell this soul your grief
succor those who mourn their deeds
press the hand that bleeds

Socrates fought sophistry,
the pimping of rhetoric
to win every argument.

His reward: hemlock.
Now he cross-examines heaven.

Lying down
at the day’s intermission,
I listen to Puccini arias,
and am transported to Lucca,
his walled hometown,
with its *****-white streets,
its darkened straits,
its massive cathedral under
eternal construction.

Life limps along in
effervescent flux here,
beauty kept dormant,
or sprouting like a tree
from the Torre Guinigi’s
grassy roof.

A one-time amphitheater
sports cloned tourist shops.
Only one
sells Puccini souvenirs.
La Boheme survives
on note cards and
lop-sided bookmarks.

The composer’s legacy turned
into trinkets made in China.
A vast, discounted reserve
of memory, kitsch and fame.
Still, they provide me
a precarious solace.

Music without words
charts my tourist mood
of endless angst.
Opera is the grandest art,
some critics claim.
The human condition rendered
thick in symbol and sound.

Happily, I carry
the philosopher’s stone
to decipher the soaring
scores.
They say, passion, foreboding,
no regrets. A fluttering
high C stirs the airwaves.

Ululating sopranos,
searing tenors sigh
heavenward.
The last act over,
the curtain rises on
the dull, restless, repetitive
routines of everyday life.

In the background,
echoes of Tosca, currents
of ruin and rust.
We must embrace our destiny
even on the off-notes.
Opera’s solo signal:
Amor Fati.

the amethyst jewel
lies coolly on her forehead
bright beauty of death

The tawny ridge bulges above the tree line:
sleeping serpent too sly to strike.

The road swerves and curves and dips and rises.
I must stay off balance to survive it.

A chorus of desiccated trees prays for rain.
The earth laughs in repose. Stones of pain.

From a fence post, a falcon thrusts into the wind,
clutches my heart as prey, flings it past tall grasses.

A white-rock trail angles hard toward the clouds.
The slightest breeze will tatter them.

The serpent stirs, stretches, slumbers still,
as I lumber north to Council Grove.

The road straightens on its own.
Who dares call these hills his home?

He spent one night in jail
for not paying his poll tax.
Good government, he wrote,
governs least. He kept his
integrity intact by composing
"Civil Disobedience." He did
what he proclaimed: Pay the price.
Suffer judgment for what is right.

At Walden Pond he embraced
simplicity and reflection; he
eschewed civilization's trappings.
He hammered out a budget
for supplies and survival.
He transformed the reeds and pond
into his temporary home. Vitality
exuded from his pen. He was alive!

Transcendentalism became his
religion of favor. Partial to "Hindoo"
philosophy, he sought the final
diminution of the unruly self.
His poems elevated the cosmos
above his puny human stature.
He situated the heart in a world
awash with questing and meaning.

Illusion obscured the way to life's
essence and virtue. Acute vision
of the natural world and shunning
all distractions proved the formula
for true fulfillment and strength.
He made the life of the mind matter;
his poetry gave voice to lasting wisdom.
He blossomed as a scribe of the soul.

Brittle branches claw
the blue-gray sky.
No figs wiggle in the tree.
Barren like Old Testament
women, clinging to their ancient
age, bereft of an heir to bless.

Jesus curses the tree's
emptiness: Bear fruit
of die! Who sinned?
the disciples ask: the tree
or its seedlings? Neither,
Jesus, proclaims. I curse

to show the glory of God.
As always, his hearers stand
amazed, not understanding,
stomachs growling for figs.
None to be had, they march on,
hoping to evade God's glory.

The future swirls steadily
ahead, rocky, uncertain and dim.
Our choices are pre-ordained
for freedom. We cannot
not choose. Creatures squirm
at the paradox. Black and white
no longer grace the color wheel.

Ragged caves beckon as shelter.
Birds take refuge in the tops
of empty trees. Exposed, they
chirp melodically at the moon.
There is no difference between
the road less traveled and its
counterpart. Mirror images,

they recede into the woods
at straitened perspectives.
I walk one alone, scanning
the sky for lasting signs
of the present. They are
blistered by sun spots.
The road veers inward.

Duration drags time out
to the breaking point.
What will be gestates
in what is. Seasons give
birth to a multicolored
brood. Paint them a
monotone grey. Walk on.

(After Emily Dickinson)

The earth has many colors
Where canvases are not
Near the unbounded horizon
Beauty is nature's faith

But dip a fresh brush for the sky
Dip a fresh brush for the sea
The stars are distant arbiters
Of painting's fate for me

Pegasus soars with a golden bridle:
imagination unharnessed.
He performs aerial feats
with composure and grace
high above the buckled clouds.

Pure white scion of Poseidon,
he ascends to the heavens.
Lightning and fire flash
in his wake. His flight
lights the world in silence.

Untamed by mortals,
he metamorphoses into
the constellation that bears his name.
Stars spread across the sky
as his pasture; ambrosia
overflows his jeweled feed bag.

The great winged stallion of
Greek mythology, he struck
the earth with his unshod
hooves and purified
water sprang forth.

He irrigated the cosmic mind,
soaked the bone-dry soul.
Those without wings must
continue to search for his
inspired springs of grace.

Rapture of the imagination,
disciplined by the gods,
he paces Zeus' stable,
free of the weight of
humanity; ridden only
by Olympians.

As he prances among
the coiling clouds,
a solitary feather falls
to the earth.
Look for him in the dark.

I thirst fiercely in the desert;
I spy oases in the sky.
I've come to the edge of Mosaic Canyon.
There's nothing to drink
but the surface of stone.
I try licking the tiny pools
of rain water filling cracks
in the boulders.
But they, too, are illusions
packed tight below the sky.

If I could survive on colors, I would
be sated. Reds, browns and tans.
A subtle gray graces the front
of the stone where I sit.
I must try to **** it dry.
Foolishly, I set out hiking
without my water bottle.
Now I hallucinate streams
and gullies in the sand.
I can't go on; I must go on.

Cirrus clouds swirl around
palm trees. Camels linger
at a bubbling pool, settled
on their knees. Cold water
spills from their gnarled mouths.
They have forgotten nothing
to survive. I have forgotten
everything. Soon I hear
my name being called.
It echoes down the canyon.

I stumble backward, ankles
slanting on the stony path.
All along, I keep my eye
on the sky. The vision never
wavers, only intensifies.
The canyon walls box me in.
I cannot catch my breath.
Behind me, my wife calls
and calls me to safety.
In her hand, a cup of cold water.

Mephistopheles moans.
His bargain won; now what
to do? What good is a human
soul as vanquished prey?

Faust exults in his superhuman
strength. He holds an unfair
advantage over all other poets.
No drug testing for magic.

He dances with the devil,
cheek to cheek. He swoons
at the crescendo, falls into
his partner's waiting arms.

There is something maniacal
in his character, like arsenic
in a tall, cold glass of water.
He gets drunk on it, gets high.

Who will judge his newest
achievement? Like for like cannot
be found. He stays isolated
in his cold grey cage. No touching.

Freedom breeds creativity,
the force of all masterworks.
Faust settles as a lap dog
for Mephistopheles.

Soulless, the poet wanders
through Dante's circles
of hell. With whom will he
find his place? No place

for his cheapened soul. No
punishment for his fiery
hubris. He forms artist and
audience as one substance,

and applauds himself.
His victory is self-serving,
but he has no human
self to serve. His triumph rings

hollow. He plays the xylophone
on his ribs. The music turns
toy-like and irritating. He has
gone too far. No way back.

Mmmmmmoon Lion roars.
The moon swerves in its orbit.
His voice reaches to the heavens,
avoiding omnivorous black holes.

He contemplates his philosophy
of life: poems written with
incorrigible vitality and verve.
He purrs the "m's" in his name.

Auden said that poetry makes
nothing happen. But Lion invokes
humor and thought, the rigor of form.
He holds deep respect for his readers.

They crave to do him justice in the
wake of an endangering diagnosis.
Poetry elevates the body, tunes in
to its hidden rhythms, sings its source.

As in Oz, the lion needs courage
to face the injustices of existence.
He silver-wraps his moments, gone
all too quickly. He instinctively roars

a new way to create poetry, one
that embraces the celestial,
disdains the body's betrayal.
He will win in the end:

His lion spirit soars.

His hounds bay and croon in the distance.
The Arkansas woods weigh down upon us
like a black hole ******* every particle
of light from the cluster of brittle limbs
and branches above our heads.

I ***** in trepidation behind my uncle,
wearing a ball cap and dungarees;
his carbide lantern leads the way.
I watch his right hand bob, half a thumb
lost to a chain and a mule in a logging accident.

He is at home here, stalking wildlife
night after night. He has found his haven from
the world, the quest for sport and game.
My father joins us. There is no need for talk.
We proceed in silence, listening to the forest floor

and the yelping of the hounds far ahead. I feel fear
as we advance in the darkness. This will be my first
and only hunt. I am 12 years old, innocent as the prey
we’re tracking. Out of breath, I catch up with the dogs,
a whirlpool of tongues and teeth and fur circling a tree.

The lantern shines high into a deep V in the trunk.
Filling it, a weak-eyed opossum peers back.
My uncle hands me a .22 rifle and says nothing,
keeping the light steady on my target.
I shakily take aim, **** the trigger, tremble.

The pale torso erupts in red. Congratulations
ring out all around. I sicken at the sight.
My fear has turned to hatred of the blood lust
and violence that has made me a man. We wait
on the hounds to return. The carbide light goes out.

1.

Dust devils swirl on the desert floor.
Saguaro cacti raise their arms
in praise or an invisible stick-up.
No gunman looms on the horizon.

My father drives us home
from California to Kansas
in a brown '61 Chevy station wagon.
His goal: to get there as soon as possible.

My brother and I bake in the back seat.
The air-conditioning freezes over.
We roll down the windows to a stifling
wall of heat. Soon, we will cross

Death Valley, already 111 degrees
at mid-morning. I squirm and worry
that we do not have enough
gas to make it. We are the only car

on the road. Emptiness breeds around us.
My imagination peoples the void
with phantoms, characters from comic books
and drugstore Westerns. Ghosts hover over

my memory now; they hold the key
to my travels. I must invoke them again.
I hear the rumble of the American Southwest:
canyons and buttes, mountains and hoodoos.

2.

On the outskirts of the Grand Canyon,
my father searches in vain for a place to stay.
All motels teem with the smell of curry --
for him, the stench of war in Calcutta,
anathema to a young Army Seabee
stationed leagues and leagues from home.

The neon light flashing VACANCY over
the whitewashed, A-frame office
might as well say NO. We do not stop.
We sleep in the car, the four of us
restive and uncomfortable, awakened
at last by sunrise over the North Rim.

A sage-scented day has begun
under a yellow-lavender sky.
There are still miles and miles to go,
as Frost put it. But something changed
in the night. Barreling down the barren blacktop
we have already gotten there, absence our new home.

Beauty affords no comfort
when you lie miles
away from the nearest castello,
where the owner serves
50-course dinners
for 50 euros apiece.
He hums Puccini
as he dishes the ravioli,
recommends strong red wine
from an earthy clay pitcher.

The white tablecloth drapes
my lap. I dare not stain it.
He is missing a button,
hits a high note, leaves
and returns.

Filled to unconsciousness,
we down the fiery limoncello.
Good for the digestion.
Good for scouring the esophagus.
Beside us a former
Olympic swimmer stabs
her potatoes.
Her children stare down
with distorted faces, inured
to the feast,
imagining a beast
to torment.
Their potatoes grow cold.

A Puccini aria plays in my head.
Lucca, his hometown, looms
on the star-spewed horizon.
Even beauty is no match
for la dolce vita.

The dead cannot pray.
They molder in their graves
awaiting resurrection,
the force that creates
the soul’s yearning for
transcendence.

We yearn for happiness,
satisfaction, comfort, rest.
We yearn for meaning,
purpose, a cosmic path.
We yearn for self-consciousness,
preciousness, an open heart.
Death cannot extinguish them.

Our days are strung together
like letters in the sand.
We see the message only
as it disappears.
Night divides the light
into fractal pieces.
The firmament flattened by
the weight of stars.

We rise and recline like
mechanical banks.
Shoot a penny in
the lion’s mouth.
Hear the hunter roar.
Death stalks the living,
sticks its finger in our
ribs: a holdup,
but we carry no cash.

Remember Ozymandias.
Memory sculpts
memorials that crumble
in the sea.
Waves lap the pieces.
Epitaphs erode.

Death be not proud,
John Donne proclaimed.
But how can the fallen
take pride in their downfall?
Extinction awaits around
every corner.
there is no defense.

Death is a theater with
its curtain half-drawn.
Below it, you track
the actors’ shuffling feet.
Above it, only oblivion
and empty stage lights.

I take my paradise
where I can find it.
Sacred or secular,
stationary or ecstatic.

Penitent pilgrims pack
the width of Las Ramblas,
marching headlong
down the pedestrian boulevard
toward the burgeoning square
of Cataluyna, scurrying
to find fountains and buses
to whisk them away
from themselves.
The burden of identity weighs
heavily in each backpack and bag.
I share their plight:
the onus of being.

2.

The sun brilliantly burnishes
the crowd, beaming with
its childlike hunger for toys.
Nothing changes
except the country
beneath their feet.
Tourism is purgatory
to the undirected.
No map, no plan, no
rescue from impulse.
Lacking travel's baptism
of fire and freedom,
they learn that
all roads lead home
whence they came.

3.

Before the closed
doors of the cavernous cathedral,
Catalans circle, lift arms,
hop, twirl and dance.
Raised hands
signal liberation, unbrokenness.

Separation plays a different melody,
sends an inferno of deconstruction
spiraling downward, singeing factions
of language and race.
Yet a divided Spain paints
its face as united,
coyly cooing behind
a splayed, perfumed fan.
The perfect picture
for the uninitiated cruise
ship crowds: No trouble
in paradise.

4.

I cool my heels at
the statue of Columbus,
anchored harbor-side;
the navigator
still ready to sail
under mistaken,
prevailing winds.
The crew
still ready to plant Spain's
contagion-carrying flag
in the shallows of faux India's
purifying pool.

O America!
How far you have drifted
from these tapas bars
and tainted streets.
How far from the graffiti-
filled neighborhoods.
No space uncovered:
The gritty lust for color, figure
and form conquers all.
Tourists queue to grab
their fair share.
Paradise need not please,
they discover.
Kick your bucket list to the sea.

5.

All is exotic in
Mediterranean Barcelona:
the languid light,
the briny breeze, the sun
radiating like a silver
grapefruit in the azure sky,
the orange shards of tile
piecing together the face
of heaven.

Gaudi still erects his towers
in wavering waves of
nature and faith.
Inside Basilica La Sagrada Familia,
construction workers
hammer his corner
of paradise slowly into place.
Christ hangs naked
on the cross.
A blue light filters
through modernista stained glass,
falls on the floor,
bathes my feet.

Death dies in the assiduously sealed tomb,
smothered by tidy, useless grave clothes.

It takes the strength of Samson to roll away
the stone, inhumanly heavy, except for the Chosen One.

By the time the women arrive to perform their funereal rites,
the tomb is empty. They run away, frightened, not hearing

the angel's good news: "He is risen." No, they think,
he is simply not there. Where, how could he be gone?

The gospel will come later, after all will see the tomb's
great void, after all will cling to what is no longer there.

Only a transformed body -- eating fish, breaking bread,
passing through walls -- convinces them of the truth:

We do not believe in an empty tomb, for in itself,
it is not salvific. We believe instead in the risen Christ.

Death dies forever in an impotent tomb, outwitted by
the love of the Creator. In Him, life triumphs over all.

Quasimodo frantically sounds the alarm,
swinging on bells like a medieval orangutan.
No sanctuary lingers in the smoldering nave.
Gargoyles roar like fire-breathing dragons,
then cower in corners, confused.

Notre Dame crumples in the wind, baptized
by the Holy Ghost and fire. Passion Week
transvalues every value: the great reversal comes.
Centuries of history agonize on the cross; dreams
of resurrection snag on collapsing rooftops.

Once a lighthouse to French pilgrims,
the spire tumbles, puncturing the pews
and all signs of hope. Prayers smother in the billowing smoke.
Non-believers gasp in hellish horror; while
the devil laughs, looting their scorched patrimony.

The ghost of Victor Hugo strolls amid barricades of crime tape.
Fire has done what the revolution could not:
Our Lady has lost her head, flames so much
messier that the swoosh of the guillotine,
strewing collateral damage in their wake.

Ile de la Cite weeps
like a fire hose dousing
dancing, infernal
flames to no effect.

Our Lady dies in her sleep,
dreaming of resurrection.
Gothic buttresses hold up
charred timbers and gloom.

The spire crashes into
nothingness; miracles
asphyxiate on fumes.
Still, the Rose Window

blooms. Memory resists
the flux of time.
Eight centuries snuffed out
like a wooden match.

Wait for it: the coming light.
Paris will reclaim its own.

Darkness devours the gibbous moon.
Its final sliver shivers in the freezing void.
Pockets of pock-marked light spill out of dusty craters.
Prints from space-age boots deface iconic astronaut signatures.

Colonies of phantoms have settled on the surface.
They sacrifice stars in elaborate rituals of absolution,
then aimlessly amble in circles around the circumference.
They squeeze water from recalcitrant rocks.

In darkness they decline to speak to one another.
Mutely, they await the daily rebirth of solar flares.
The moon generates nothing on its own. Cosmic
passivity mimics social order. A fiery Logos descends.